House in Akitsu

Located on a small peninsula, the project site faces directly the beautiful scenery of the Seto Inland Sea. The most interesting challenge for this project was to create a comfortable inside silence combined with a new openness atmosphere. In this plan I set two squares intersecting each other and thought about the good balanced interaction between the wall structure and the openings.

The moving line inside the house becomes fluid thanks to the use of skipping floors and short stairs that connect the living area with the sleeping rooms. The use of a polish concrete finish for the living room and the kitchen floor became important in order to give an additional value to the external light. The first floor is slightly buried and its ceiling was set lower rather than the living room in order to achieve a more private and cozy feeling.

Here resides a very special concrete spiral staircase. The thickness of the supporting slab becomes invisible to its outer and inner end and it was designed in order to avoid any necessity of a central pillar. In this way from its central axe only a perfect straight line appears.

Kazunori Fujimoto Architect & Associates
Kazunori Fujimoto, principal-in-charge; François Nahory

Structural engineer: Nishi Structural Consultants
Construction Team: Nakahara Kensetsu Co.,Ltd.